A fisherman who was found alive after drifting in the Pacific Ocean for nearly four months had one request, according to a report on Friday: Get me a "smoke."

Agence France-Presse, citing the Marshall Islands fishing vessel that found the fisherman, said the man was healthy but a friend who had set sail with him on May 28 had died.

The rescued fisherman was named Toakai Teitoi, AFP quoted fisheries observer Ali Ezekiah as saying in a radio message from the rescue vessel to an onshore agent. He was reportedly from Kiribati, an island nation in the Central Pacific.

Teitoi was found by the Marshall Islands fishing vessel Marshalls 203 on Sept. 11, northeast of the tiny island nation of Nauru, AFP reported.

"When the crew brought him on to the fishing boat and asked him what he wanted, the first thing he said was 'smoke,'" or a cigarette, AFP quoted Ezekiah as saying.

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The vessel was due to dock in Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, this weekend, the news agency said.

Teitoi told his rescuers that his 45-foot boat had suffered engine trouble, AFP reported. He survived by eating fish and drinking rainwater, but his friend died on July 4, according to the report.

It was not immediately clear from where Teitoi set sail. Majuro is more than 400 miles from Tarawa, the capital of Kiribati.

According to the BBC, the Guinness Book of World Records says the record for drifting at sea is held by two fishermen, also from Kiribati, who drifted for 177 days in 1992 before finally landing in Samoa.

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Richard Vogel / AP, file

Authorities in Kiribati, seen here in an aerial photo taken in 2004, have been considering several unusual options to combat climate change, including constructing sea walls and even building a floating island.

Fearing that climate change could wipe out their entire Pacific archipelago, the leaders of Kiribati are considering an unusual backup plan: moving the populace to Fiji.

Kiribati President Anote Tong told The Associated Press on Friday that his Cabinet this week endorsed a plan to buy nearly 6,000 acres on Fiji's main island, Viti Levu. He said the fertile land, being sold by a church group for about $9.6 million, could provide an insurance policy for Kiribati's entire population of 103,000, though he hopes it will never be necessary for everyone to leave.

"We would hope not to put everyone on one piece of land, but if it became absolutely necessary, yes, we could do it," Tong said. "It wouldn't be for me, personally, but would apply more to a younger generation. For them, moving won't be a matter of choice. It's basically going to be a matter of survival."

Kiribati, which straddles the equator near the international date line, has found itself at the leading edge of the debate on climate change because many of its atolls rise just a few feet above sea level.

Warming oceans could melt ice faster than expected

Tong said some villages have already moved and there have been increasing instances of sea water contaminating the island's underground fresh water, which remains vital for trees and crops. He said changing rainfall, tidal and storm patterns pose as least as much threat as ocean levels, which so far have risen only slightly.

Some scientists have estimated the current level of sea rise in the Pacific at about 2 millimeters (0.1 inches) per year. Many scientists expect that rate to accelerate due to climate change.

Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert / Greenpeace via AP, file

In this photo released by Greenpeace, Pita Meanke, of Betio village, stands beside a tree as he watches the 'king tides' crash through the sea wall his family built onto his family property, on the South Pacific island of Kiribati.

Fiji, home to about 850,000 people, is about 1,400 miles south of Kiribati. But just what people there think about potentially providing a home for thousands of their neighbors remains unclear. Tong said he's awaiting full parliamentary approval for the land purchase, which he expects in April, before discussing the plan formally with Fijian officials.

'We're trying to secure the future'
Sharon Smith-Johns, a spokeswoman for the Fijian government, said several agencies are studying Kiribati's plans and the government will release a formal statement next week.

Kiribati, which was known as the Gilbert Islands when it was a British colony, has been an independent nation since 1979.

Oceans' acidic shift may be fastest in 300 million years

Tong has been considering other unusual options to combat climate change, including shoring up some Kiribati islands with sea walls and even building a floating island. He said this week that the latter option would likely prove too expensive, but that he hopes reinforcing some islands will ensure that Kiribati continues to exist in some form even in a worst-case scenario.

"We're trying to secure the future of our people," he said. "The international community needs to be addressing this problem more."

Tong said he hopes that the Fiji land will represent just one of several options for relocating people. He pointed out that the land is three times larger than the atoll of Tarawa, currently home to more than half of Kiribati's population.

Although like much of the Pacific, Kiribati is poor — its annual GDP per person is just $1,600 — Tong said the country has plenty of foreign reserves to draw from for the land purchase. The money, he said, comes from phosphate mining on the archipelago in the 1970s.

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